A friend of mine went back to her hometown for the weekend and when she got back to Guilin, she called to tell me she had a surprise for me. It was these Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) cups. They date to the late 19th century. They were black with soot and grease from generations of cooking fires, but with some elbow grease, degreaser, and bleach, they cleaned up very well. She said her parents were cleaning out the area above their kitchen and found them in the corner.

I don't personally own any of these pieces but if you would like to see 100's of photos of antique tea ware have a look see at my blog. For the past 3 or 4 years I have posted several times a month my study forays to a local antiques store. It is very image heavy. I am posting the link to the posts that contain the tag 'Japanese antiques'. http://togeii.wordpress.com/tag/japanese-antiques/
Dave

togei wrote:I don't personally own any of these pieces but if you would like to see 100's of photos of antique tea ware have a look see at my blog. For the past 3 or 4 years I have posted several times a month my study forays to a local antiques store. It is very image heavy. I am posting the link to the posts that contain the tag 'Japanese antiques'. http://togeii.wordpress.com/tag/japanese-antiques/
Dave

I forgot to mention. Most of the cups have names carved into the bottom of them. You can see some in the photos. After cleaning, they become harder to see. They will darken as they get used.

Since most of the cups available were very similar, people used to have their names carved into the bottom of the cups, so they would know whose was whose. A lot of collectors here do not want the names in the bottom, but I prefer them because it adds a bit of history to each piece.

The owners would have their names put inside by the local pottery repair-man who would walk down the streets with his boxes of tools offering to repair broken pottery. The names were actually drilled into the bottom of the cups. A drill bit was used to put a series of little holes in the bottom to make up the characters.

Not all marked cups had names in them. Some had images, titles, or tea house names in them. These are less common.